What Does It Actually Mean To Thrive?
Thriving is not a one-size-fits all life event, so what is it?
What does it actually mean to thrive?
This is such an interesting topic because there are so many ideas about what thriving means. For that reason, in this episode, I want to begin by stripping it right back to the basics by starting with what the verb ‘thrive’ actually means.
First of all, let’s look at the word in focus. So, when you look up ‘thrive’ in the dictionary, you find two definitions, you find firstly that it means to grow or develop well or vigorously, and you also find that it means to prosper or flourish.
There are number of keywords that stand out to me in these definitions that tie in brilliantly with what I’m going to explore today and throughout this podcast. Now, the keywords that stand out most to me in these definitions are ‘grow’, ‘develop’, ‘prosper’ and ‘flourish’.
When I was researching this topic, one of the really interesting things that I noticed was that thriving means a lot of different things to different people. I’d go as far as to say that we each have our own personal definition of what thriving means to us.
How do we know when we are thriving?
A year ago, if you had asked me what thriving meant to me, I would have said, “Thriving to me means financial freedom, it means that I would own assets rather than be shouldering liabilities. To me, thriving means that I can travel and work from anywhere instead of having to be in one place with set hours of work. It also means that I continue to improve myself and my skills”.
The interesting thing about what I would have said back then is that it has all the hallmarks and associations of the keywords that I mentioned just now. I wanted to experience growth and continue to develop myself, meanwhile, I wanted to prosper so that I could live a life by my own design and flourish personally.
My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.
– Maya Angelou
Thriving can tell us a lot about ourselves and reflects our personality in a number of ways. Let’s use an example here. Let’s talk a bit about Bill Gates, because everyone has heard of him. What do you think he would say if you asked him “What does it mean to thrive? And what does thriving mean to you?”.
Have a think about that for a second. Although I don’t know exactly what he would say, we can look at what he has achieved (his success) in business and what he has achieved financially; he’s obviously famous, but more than that, he owns assets (stocks and shares, he’s invested in private companies), and of course, there is the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. I’m sure there’s probably more than this, but these are just a few that I can think of at this moment.
Recently, I watched a great documentary series on Netflix called ‘Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates’. What I loved about the series, is that despite already being smart and successful, Bill Gates is constantly striving for growth. One of the ways that he does this is by spending a vast amount of his time reading and talking to other people, even taking a week each year to just read with no distractions. Seriously, how many of us just take a holiday where we just sit and read with no distractions at all for seven whole days?
It’s interesting to me that he is consistently developing and learning so that he can continue to flourish, even as someone who most of us would deem to be thriving already.
What do thriving people have?
I wanted to find out what others think about this topic, so I searched around and read a number of interesting articles on it. There are a number of things that people who are thriving are commonly believed to have.
These are the ones that popped up the most frequently during my research.
- Firstly, financial freedom. Those who are considered to be thriving are often associated with or thought to have an abundance of money.
- Secondly, they are believed to own a large number of assets. Thriving folk are associated with owning a lot of things such as cars or houses, but assets could also include stocks and shares (financial assets).
- They’re believed to have the freedom to travel when they want and for however long they want.
- People who are thriving are thought to have a lack of money worries, troubles or struggles, and if they do have them, money worries don’t seem to last for long or hit them very hard. If they do have financial problems, a lot of them seem to bounce back again relatively unscathed.
- Finally, people who are thriving are considered to have the confidence and self-belief to be successful.
From my reading on the subject of thriving and its relationship with our mindset, I realised that the list of factors and elements that contribute to thriving took up an entire page in my journal — and I’m talking about two columns of keywords that I came across again and again. Although people who are seen to be thriving may have a wealth of assets and freedom, there’s far more to thriving than most of us perceive.
How do we know when we are thriving?
I decided to see what some of my Instagram followers thought about a few of the factors that I’d discovered in my research, therefore, I created a poll that asked the question, “What does ‘thriving’ mean to you?”. I gave four possible answers to this question for them to choose from which were success, freedom, happiness, and good health.
When I checked back on the poll, there were a number of responses but what interested me the most was that the highest number of answers were that thriving to them meant ‘happiness’. ‘Good health’ and ‘success’ came in with same number of votes, and ‘freedom’ received the least. This is by no means a definitive study, but it was interesting to see that success, which is usually associated with thriving got a lower number of votes than happiness.
I talked a bit earlier about what thriving means to me, but what you may be surprised to know is, I know that what I considered to be thriving a year ago was a flawed perception. What I mean by this is, when we think about thriving, we often see it in our minds as a definitive goal that one day we will reach and then that’s it, we’re thriving. But that’s absolutely not the case, and here’s why.
When I was researching a podcast episode a few weeks ago, I read an article written by an author called Kim Forrester. There were a few phrases that really stuck with me after reading her article, one being the way she described the society we live in as “results obsessed”. When I read it, I thought, “Whoa! She’s so right!”.
Who hasn’t had a job role that didn’t have in your contract or job description that your aim is to increase this number of people or sales by such and such a percent, and then you have a quarterly review of how you’re doing? Pretty much everyone. Today’s world is obsessed with and runs on the acquisition of data and obtaining results.
Resilience is all about being able to overcome the unexpected. Sustainability is about survival. The goal of resilience is to thrive.
– Jamais Cascio
We have a tendency, without consciously thinking about it, to see thriving as a personal goal. It’s often viewed as a point of reference in the distance, like in map reading, where you are aiming for a point and are trying to find the best way of getting to it. Thriving has almost become an entity in our heads, it’s an achievement where we experience greater wealth, wellness and an abundance of happiness.
What would you think if I said to you, that’s where we’re going wrong when we think about thriving?
There is an overwhelming belief that if you follow the correct formula, that if you tick all of the correct boxes, then you’ll ‘thrive’ with ease, maybe forever. But isn’t that somewhat missing the point?
Checkboxes for thriving often include sleeping enough, getting up on time, exercising, eating healthily, thinking positive thoughts, surrounding yourself with supportive people, and many more. The list of checkboxes could go on for pages.
Even though these all help to create a healthy lifestyle, they are often talked about as if they are a single achievable event. That simply isn’t the case though.
It’s not a case of eating healthily one evening and checking off the healthy eating box forever after. It’s about checking off that box every day. When we do that and we continue doing that, that’s when we start reaping the awards of feeling better, losing weight, and increasing in self-confidence.
When it comes to thriving, everything has an impact, from the books that we read, the food that we eat and the people that we surround ourselves with.
Key Takeaways
A fundamental part of thriving is that it’s a continuous process of growth and development. It’s a journey that we undergo and really, that’s what thriving is. When we’re growing, adapting to new circumstances, and expanding our knowledge and skills, we’re starting to thrive. When we take the step to change a career, take on a task that is out of our comfort zone, or take a risk that we wouldn’t normally, we are starting to thrive.
It’s interesting that by being determined to reach the goal of thriving, most of us are missing out on the process and the journey that is actually us thriving.
I suppose it’s as good a time as any to ask the question, do we ever stop thriving if it’s not a goal but a continuous process? I don’t know for sure. I’d probably say “No, I think there’s always room for more growth and development and even if we prosper, there’s always room for improvement there too”.
